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We explored how individuals’ mental representations of complex and uncertain situations impact their ability to reason wisely. To this end, we introduce situated methods to capture abstract and concrete mental representations and the switching between them when reflecting on social challenges. Using these methods, we evaluated the alignment of abstractness and concreteness with four integral facets of wisdom: intellectual humility, open-mindedness, perspective-taking, and compromise-seeking. Data from North American and UK participants (N = 1,151) revealed that both abstract and concrete construals significantly contribute to wise reasoning, even when controlling for a host of relevant covariates and potential response bias. Natural language processing of unstructured texts among high (top 25%) and low (bottom 25%) wisdom participants corroborated these results: semantic networks of the high wisdom group reveal greater use of both abstract and concrete themes compared to the low wisdom group. Finally, employing a repeated strategy-choice method as an additional measure, our findings demonstrated that individuals who showed a greater balance and switching between these construal types exhibited higher wisdom. Our findings advance understanding of individual differences in mental representations and how construals shape reasoning across contexts in everyday life.
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REPORT
The Wise Mind Balances the Abstract
and the Concrete
Igor Grossmann
1
, Johanna Peetz
2
, Anna Dorfman
3
,AmandaRotella
4
, and Roger Buehler
5
1
Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada
2
Psychology Department, Carleton University, Ottawa, ON, Canada
3
Department of Psychology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel
4
Department of Psychology, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom
5
Psychology Department, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada
Keywords: mental representations, construal, wisdom, perspective-taking, measurement
ABSTRACT
We explored how individualsmental representations of complex and uncertain situations
impact their ability to reason wisely. To this end, we introduce situated methods to capture
abstract and concrete mental representations and the switching between them when reflecting
on social challenges. Using these methods, we evaluated the alignment of abstractness and
concreteness with four integral facets of wisdom: intellectual humility, open-mindedness,
perspective-taking, and compromise-seeking. Data from North American and UK participants
(N= 1,151) revealed that both abstract and concrete construals significantly contribute to
wise reasoning, even when controlling for a host of relevant covariates and potential response
bias. Natural language processing of unstructured texts among high (top 25%) and low
(bottom 25%) wisdom participants corroborated these results: semantic networks of the high
wisdom group reveal greater use of both abstract and concrete themes compared to the low
wisdom group. Finally, employing a repeated strategy-choice method as an additional
measure, our findings demonstrated that individuals who showed a greater balance and
switching between these construal types exhibited higher wisdom. Our findings advance
understanding of individual differences in mental representations and how construals shape
reasoning across contexts in everyday life.
INTRODUCTION
For centuries, scholars, leaders, and spiritual figures have pondered the elusive qualities that
make up a wise mind. Take Isaiah Berlinshedgehog and the foxanalogy (Berlin, 1953),
which distinguished between thinkers favoring a monist, abstract approach as a basis for their
judgment, and thinkers favoring a pluralist and context-sensitive approach. Berlin categorized
various poets and luminaries as either abstract hedgehogs(e.g., Plato, Hegel, Dostoyevsky,
or Nietzsche) or pluralist, context-aware foxes(e.g., Aristotle, Franklin, Pushkin, or Diderot)
who draw on both the abstract and the concrete to move on many levels, seizing upon the
essence of a vast variety of experiences.In many areas of life imbued with uncertainty (Keil,
2010) such as geopolitics (Tetlock, 2005), one may take a step back and approach an issue
abstractly or consider how to balance abstract analytical principles with concrete features of
the situation at hand (Brunswick, 1955; Hammond, 2010).
an open access journal
Citation: Grossmann, I., Peetz, J.,
Dorfman, A., Rotella, A., & Buehler, R.
(2024). The Wise Mind Balances the
Abstract and the Concrete. Open Mind:
Discoveries in Cognitive Science,8,
826858. https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi
_a_00149
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00149
Supplemental Materials:
https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00149
Received: 4 January 2024
Accepted: 17 May 2024
Competing Interests: The authors
declare no conflict of interests.
Corresponding Author:
Igor Grossmann
igrossma@uwaterloo.ca
Copyright: © 2024
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Published under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International
(CC BY 4.0) license
The MIT Press
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Critically, the distinction between abstract and concrete thinking remains a topic at the
heart of several programs of research in the social (Trope & Liberman, 2010) and cognitive
sciences (e.g., Barsalou et al., 2018; Bolognesi et al., 2020; Borghi, 2022). In social psychol-
ogy, the influential (Adler & Sarstedt, 2021) Construal Level Theory (CLT) posits that psycho-
logical distance from events and objects influences the nature of their mental representation
(Trope & Liberman, 2010). Per CLT, the present experience is represented concretely, whereas
events and objects that are psychologically distant are represented abstractly. In contradistinction
to the pluralistic approach of foxes outlined above, some interpretations of the CLT framework
imply abstractness and concreteness lie on the opposite ends of a continuum, exemplified by the
language of highand lowlevels of construal in this scholarship (Burgoon et al., 2013)and
the common use of the unidimensional Behavioral Identification Form (BIF; Vallacher & Wegner,
1989) to assess effectiveness of the manipulated construal. Practically, scholars typically assess
abstract and concrete modes of thinking on a unidimensional continuum. That is, studies usually
compute a general abstractness index from concreteness and abstractness scores rather than use
each score separately, with the assumption that highabstractness is merely an inverse of the
lowconcreteness.
Conversely, abstractness and concreteness can also be understood as complementary pro-
cesses in a multidimensional space (Bolognesi et al., 2020; Borghi, 2022; Borghi et al., 2018;
Troyer & McRae, 2022; Villani et al., 2022): From the situated perspective on mental repre-
sentations (Barsalou et al., 2018), abstract processes are posited as necessary to integrate
information to comprehend what is happening in a concrete situation, to make predictions
about how a situation may unfold and change, or to select actions that are most likely to yield
desired outcomes. From this perspective, mental representations help to identify situational
elements and to integrate them; both steps could include elements of abstractness and
concreteness.
Similarly, the recently advanced regulatory scope theory in social psychology (Trope et al.,
2021) posits individuals modulate between abstract and concrete mental representations, not
solely based on their regulatory focus or the psychological distance of a task, but also in
response to the situational demands and the need for regulatory balance. Abstract construals,
which facilitate a broader, expansive scope, are typically applied to tasks or goals that are
psychologically distant or future-oriented. In contrast, concrete construals, which lead to a
more contractive scope, are employed for immediate, specific tasks or problems. Crucially,
effective regulation, as proposed by this theory, involves the capacity for flexible switching
between these construal types. This adaptability is essential for responding effectively to vary-
ing contextual demands and for maintaining a balance between the expansive and contractive
aspects of regulatory scopea novel proposition calling for empirical research.
Overall, in spite of rich theorizing of abstract and concrete modes of thinking as distinct
processes within both cognitive science (e.g., Barsalou et al., 2018) and social psychology
(e.g., Trope et al., 2021), dominant measurement approaches aim to capture abstractness
and concreteness along a single continuum. Putting these insights together, we investigate
the relationship between wisdom and abstract and concrete construals. Because we observed
measurement issues in prior construal research (see Supplement), we introduce and psycho-
metrically validate a novel situation-sensitive method to capture abstract and concrete
construal. Following recent theoretical propositions for complementarity of abstract and
concrete construal (Barsalou et al., 2018; Trope et al., 2021; Wiesenfeld et al., 2017; also
see Steinbach et al., 2019), we further explore construal switching. To examine the associa-
tion of mental representations to the quality of ones thought, we tested the association of
abstractness to concreteness and the role of each construal type for several cardinal features
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of wisdomintellectual humility, recognition of change, perspective-taking, and
compromise-seeking.
On Wisdom
Wisdom is a complex network of mental features that extends beyond knowledge or domain-
specific cognitive abilities (Baltes & Kunzmann, 2004; Baltes & Smith, 2008; Baltes &
Staudinger, 2000; Darnell et al., 2019; Jeste et al., 2010; Kekes, 1983; McKee & Barber,
1999; Sternberg, 2007; Vervaeke & Ferraro, 2013). In recent years, social and behavioral
scientists have identified several mental features that form the psychological foundations of
wisdom (Baltes & Smith, 2008; Bangen et al., 2013; Grossmann, 2017; Oakes et al., 2019;
Santos et al., 2017), such as intellectual humility (i.e., recognition of limits of ones knowl-
edge), open-mindedness to multiple ways an issue might unfold and change, consideration
of different perspectives on the issue, and a search for compromise in resolving opposing view-
points. These meta-cognitive features are at the center of the recently advanced Common Wis-
dom Modeli.e., a common denominator across most operationalizations of the construct in
behavioral and social sciences (Grossmann, Weststrate, Ardelt, et al., 2020; Grossmann,
Weststrate, Ferrari, et al., 2020). These features of wisdom are distinct from other established
personality traits and intelligence (Brienza & Grossmann, 2017; Brienza et al., 2018;Grossmann
et al., 2013) and have been uniquely associated with prosocial attitudes and behavior (Brienza
et al., 2018,2021; Grossmann & Brienza, 2018; Grossmann et al., 2017), interpersonal and
subjective well-being (Grossmann et al., 2013; Huynh et al., 2016; Peetz & Grossmann,
2021), and affective accuracy about future interpersonal conflicts (Grossmann et al.,
2021). However, a critical question remains unresolved: How do the mental representations
of events in peoples lives relate to these features of wisdom?
Wisdom and Construal
When people think about events or decisions, their construalsor mental representations can
be either abstract, focusing on general, context-independent characteristics, or concrete,
detailing specific, context-dependent aspects ( Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). While there is no
universal agreement about the defining features of construal, core markers include linguistic
categories associated with abstract versus concrete thought (Semin & Fiedler, 1988; Wakslak
et al., 2014; Yin et al., 2022), whether people identify the event with abstract versus concrete
descriptors (Fujita et al., 2006; Vallacher & Wegner, 1989), whether people focus on how
versus why the event occurred (Freitas et al., 2004; Trope et al., 2021; Villani et al., 2022),
whether the event is seen as unique versus one of a set of similar experiences (Kahneman &
Lovallo, 1993; Lagnado & Sloman, 2004; Ledgerwood et al., 2010; Liberman et al., 2002).
Across most of these indicators, construal in social psychology is measured along on a contin-
uum, with abstract thought at one end and concrete thought at the other (Gilead et al., 2020).
This methodological unidimensionality stands in contrast to Berlins portrayal of wise
foxes(1953)i.e., individuals who appear to rely on both abstract and concrete processes
in the context of judgment. Emerging cognitive science research also suggests that abstract
thinking, while seemingly opposite to concrete thinking, is essential for implementing concrete
action plans (Barsalou et al., 2018). Moreover, features described as abstract and concrete in
the CLT scholarship may conceptually target different, albeit interrelated dimensions. Specifi-
cally, some theories distinguish between perceptual abstractness on the one hand and cate-
gorical abstraction (vs. specificity) on the other hand (Bolognesi et al., 2020; Borghi, 2022). For
example, tableand theorydiffer in perceptual abstractness (tangible vs. intangible), while
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tableand furniturediffer in categorical specificity (specific vs. general). Critically, percep-
tual abstractness is only weakly related to categorical abstraction (Bolognesi et al., 2020).
Notably, in prior CLT research abstract construal has been defined in terms of typicality
(Kahneman & Lovallo, 1993; Ledgerwood et al., 2010) and the broader meaning of the situ-
ation (e.g., focus on why) (Fujita et al., 2006), whereas concrete construal has been defined
in terms of experiential, detailed, vivid, readily observable characteristics (e.g., focus on
how) (Burgoon et al., 2013). These different foci are thought to engage distinct cognitive
processes: categorical abstraction (vs. specificity; for abstract construal) and perceptual con-
creteness (vs. abstractness; for concrete construals).
These observations lead us to question how abstract and concrete construals relate in the
context of wisdom, especially given the mixed findings in prior research. On the one hand,
some scholarship shows that ego de-centeringa strategy implicating psychological distance
(Kross & Ayduk, 2017)can promote greater wisdom (for a review, see Grossmann, 2017),
including intellectual humility, consideration of different ways a complex situation may
unfold, and willingness to compromise (Grossmann et al., 2021; Grossmann & Kross, 2014;
Kross & Grossmann, 2012). Per CLT, these findings suggest that greater wisdom is associated
with more abstract thought. On the other hand, several observational, diary, and experimental
studies have documented a positive association between aforementioned features of wisdom
and attention to emotional experiences and emotional intensity (Grossmann et al., 2016,
2019,2021)both considered concrete features of an experience. Moreover, abstract thought
can detract from wisdom, such that abstract construal can lead to oversimplified, schematic
(Aguilar et al., 2013) or stereotypical (McCrea et al., 2012) thinking, and ignore unique, indi-
viduating features of the situation (Braga et al., 2014; Eyal et al., 2011) that could benefit wise
judgment.
Thus, the question remains: how do abstract and concrete construal relate to wisdom?
Bringing social and cognitive science insights together, we propose that abstractness and
concreteness have complementary benefits for wisdom, and that the optimal approach may
be to balance or switch between them. This aligns with the idea that wisdom is pluralistic
(Brunswick, 1955; Dhami & Mumpower, 2018; Hammond, 2010), involving a balance
between abstract and context-specific elements of judgment to maximize adaptive outcomes.
Moreover, it aligns with the cognitive science view on the complementarity of abstract
construal (or categorical abstraction) and concrete construal (or perceptual concreteness) in
mental representations.
We suggest that though mental features of wisdom may be aligned with an abstract
construal of the situation, there are also potential unwise consequences of solely relying on
representations that may be oversimplified or schematic. Focusing also on concrete represen-
tations may be helpful for promoting wisdom because they allow people to be sensitive to the
details of the here and now, and respond to unique, individuating information available in the
current context. We propose that mental features of wisdom may be aligned with a consider-
ation of both abstract and concrete mental representations. Following the pluralist style of
thought Berlin attributed to intellectual foxes(Berlin, 1953), features of wise thought such
as intellectual humility or perspective-taking may be aligned with greater flexibility in mental
representations.
To elaborate on this proposition, consider such aspects of wisdom as intellectual humility
(Porter et al., 2022). Recognizing limits of ones knowledge requires focusing on specific
details of the issue at hand (concrete construal) and understanding ones general knowledge
scope (abstract construal). In a similar vein, acknowledgment of different perspectives requires
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awareness of ones perspective and concrete perspectives of others, which at the most basic
level requires concrete construal. But it also requires a more abstract realization whether ones
perspective is like others. Many meta-cognitive aspects of the Common Wisdom Model dis-
cussed in philosophy and behavioral sciences such as intellectual humility, acknowledgement
of uncertainty, and perspective-taking (Grossmann, Weststrate, Ardelt, et al., 2020) appear to
be related to both concrete and abstract construals. This proposition also dovetails with
research on human judgment, which shows that a context-sensitive fox, who draws on both
the abstract and the concrete, is more likely to correctly forecast geopolitical events compared
to an abstract-only hedgehog (Mellers et al., 2015).
Psychometric Concerns and Level of Analysis
To test this proposition, it is crucial to start by examining the psychometric properties of mental
construals. Existing trait-style construal measures such as the Behavioral Identification Inven-
tory (BIF; Vallacher & Wegner, 1989) imply that construal is a unidimensional construct with
abstractness on one end and concreteness on another; thus, the relationship between the sub-
jective sense of abstractness and concreteness would be negative and there would be little
reason to consider their mutual association with ones wisdom. However, if people mentally
represent abstractness and concreteness as unique dimensions, the relationship between them
can take different forms
1
.
Moreover, it is important to note that while the current literature on construal has mainly
focused on experimentally-induced changes in a given situation (for example Fiedler et al.,
2012), the relationship between abstract and concrete construal may also vary depending
on the level of analysis (Keil, 2010; Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). Between-group differences
in construal in experiments (e.g., more abstract mental representations in the distanced group
compared to less distanced group)as studied in classic between-person social psychological
experimentsdo not necessary correspond to the inter-individual differences in construal
(e.g., individuals who show more abstract mental representations might not also report greater
psychological distance, as studied in cognitive science scholarship on abstract and concrete
concepts). Nor would either of these levels of analysis need to correspond to the level of intra-
individual change (e.g., if the individual changes degree of abstractness from one situation to
another, they might not show a corresponding change in psychological distance)asofar
underexplored area of research. For example, while individuals may vary in their general ten-
dency to use abstract or concrete construals, the relationship between these construals may
also differ across social contexts. To overcome these limitations, we examine the relationship
between abstract and concrete construal at both the inter-individual and intra-individual levels
to advance our understanding of how construal is implicated in making wise judgments.
Overview
A series of pilot studies revealed a positive association between reports of abstractness and
concreteness and wisdom in reflections on autobiographical events and decision scenarios.
Based on this pilot work, in Study 1 we developed and psychometrically evaluated a novel
individual difference measure of abstractness and concreteness and their influence of the
1
It is possible that the subjective sense of relying on both abstract and concrete construal originates from
the switching between highand lowlevels of the same objective dimension. The present work does not
concern the question of the realism of construal processesi.e., whether and how mental processes such as
construals are rooted in objective reality. Instead, the present claims squarely target the phenomenology by
examining measurement of subjective mental representations.
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central features of wisdom. In Study 2, we used this new measure to examine how abstract and
concrete construals distinctly align with mental features of wisdom across different levels of
analysis; between-person level and when examining within-person variability in construal and
wisdom across a range of social situations. We examined these associations across social sit-
uations in which people had experienced a conflict or some other challenge involving another
person; the kinds of real-life circumstances where wise judgment is advantageous. Addition-
ally, we examined the extent to which people switch their construal strategies from abstract to
concrete while reflecting on challenging issues and how construal switching aligns to mental
features of wisdom across different levels of analysis. Our results suggest that people represent
abstract and concrete construals as distinct processes rather than inverse poles of the same
dimension. Moreover, we observed that both abstract and concrete construals were each pos-
itively associated with each tested feature of wisdom (Studies 12), as were measures of bal-
ance and switching between construal types (Study 2). The pre-registration documents,
unabridged surveys, and data for all studies are available in the supplemental online materials.
PILOT STUDIES
We started by examining three features reported in prior construal research: 1) action repre-
sentation asking why an action is performed (abstract) versus how an action is performed
(concrete) (Fujita et al., 2006; Villani et al., 2022); 2) mental model of an event thinking
about an event as an instance of a broader category (abstraction) versus as a unique instance
(specificity) (Bolognesi et al., 2020; Ledgerwood et al., 2010); and 3) the event viewpoint
observer (perceptual abstractness) versus experiential actor (perceptual concreteness)
(Bolognesi et al., 2020; Libby & Eibach, 2011; Shaeffer et al., 2015). In four studies, we asked
participants to report these construal-related features when reflecting on events in their lives,
which included autobiographical events, anticipated social challenges, and decision scenar-
ios. Subsequently, participants completed an established scale assessing mental features of
wisdom (Brienza et al., 2018; Grossmann, Weststrate, Ardelt, et al., 2020). In Pilot Study A
we found that both features of abstract and of concrete construal were independently linked
with wiser reasoning (intellectual humility, open-mindedness to change, perspective-taking,
search for a compromise; examined separately and jointly) about anticipated future social sit-
uations. Pilot Study B replicated these links with different features of construal, focusing on
autobiographical past situations. In Pilot Study C we unsuccessfully attempted to manipulate
the prevalence of construal features (Freitas et al., 2004), but again showed that, on the level of
individual differences, both abstract and concrete features were independently linked with
wiser reasoning. Pilot Study D examined hypothetical decision scenarios and showed that,
in line with previous CLT research (Eyal et al., 2004; Liberman & Trope, 1998), features of
abstractness also uniquely related to desirability concerns and features of concreteness to
feasibility concerns, supporting the discriminant validity of the construal features; in turn, both
abstract and concrete construal features were associated with wiser reasoning.
In line with pre-registered predictions, the results from each pilot study along with the meta-
analytic estimates (overall N= 915) showed that both abstract and concrete construal were
positively associated with mental features of wisdom, abstract: r= .23, 95% CI [.17; .29];
concrete: r= .28, 95% CI [.22; .37]. The effects were consistent across different features of
construal, and when controlling for length of reflection (a proxy for deliberation effort).
Detailed results are presented in the online supplement.
However, analyses of the features of abstract and concrete construal used in these pilot
studies also revealed that the construal indices showed modest reliability. These concerns
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motivated us to develop a more theoretically and psychometrically grounded measure of
abstract and concrete construal in our Study 1.
STUDY 1
To overcome the measurement issues presented in the pilot studies, in Study 1 we developed a
new Situation-specific Abstract and Concrete Construal Scale (SACCS). We examined the under-
lying factor structure, the nomological network (including convergent and discriminant validity),
and associations to wisdom. In the exploratory Study 1a, we performed item selection. In Study
1b, we performed pre-registered confirmatory analyses on two new samples (https://osf.io
/gf8hu), reducing the item pool. Simultaneously, we examined the nomological network of
the scale and tested the associations to mental features of wisdom. We predicted factor analyses
to reveal largely independent factors for abstract and concrete construals. Further, we predicted
both abstract and concrete construal would be independently and positively related to wisdom.
We examined robustness of the associations between both construal types and wisdom, with
cognitive reflection (Frederick, 2005), impulsivity, rational-experiential focus (Norris & Epstein,
2011), and differences in personality (Ashton & Lee, 2009)ascovariates.
Methods
Ethics Review Board Statement. This research was reviewed and received ethics clearance
through the Research Ethics Committee (Protocol # 22518). Informed consent was obtained
from all participants. This research was carried out following the recommendations of the
Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Waterloo, with written informed con-
sent following the Declaration of Helsinki.
Item Generation and Initial Selection (Study 1a)
We generated 67 items for abstract and concrete construal that appeared central to prior the-
ory and research (for reviews, see Trope & Liberman, 2010; Vallacher & Wegner, 2012). First,
we performed an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to find the best factor structure as well as
identify uniquely-loading items on respective factors. In parallel, we reached out to five con-
strual level theory experts, to ensure our selection was consistent with features construal
researchers consider relevant for the construct. Employing a variant of the expert elicitation
procedure, experts provided general feedback on key features of abstract and concrete con-
strual, also indicated the suitability of these items for the operationalization of abstract and
concrete construal in challenging situations. Through this process, we reduced the item pool
to 22 items.
Participants. We recruited a convenience sample of English-speaking mTurk participants via
CloudResearch in exchange for $1.20. Four hundred sixty-seven U.S. participants completed
the study. We excluded observations that included bot-like (e.g., nice) and nonsense
responses (e.g., The situation is very happens to moment) to the open-ended questions,
and participants who failed to respond to most of the items. Further, we used Mahalanobis
distance scores to remove multivariate outliers (see supplement for details). The final sample
included 293 participants (Mage = 35.89, SD = 11.92; 36% female; 6.83% no college,
25.94% some college/vocational school, 49.49% completed college, 17.75%
graduate/professional degree; Md[household income] = $35,001$50,000; 5.80% Asian,
17.41% Black, 68.26% White, 5.80% Hispanic, 0.68% East Indian, 1.02% Mixed).
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Procedure and Materials. Because we sought to situate the measure of construal in the context
of specific states, we first asked participants to recall a social conflict or some other challeng-
ing recent situation that has happened to them with another person (e.g., disagreement)
(Brienza et al., 2018; see Appendix for verbatim instructions). One of the significant challenges
with recall tasks are the memory bias and desirability-related distortions (Kahneman et al.,
2004; Schwarz et al., 2009). To ensure greater access to memory, we asked participants to
reconstruct the event and contextualise the details by answering six questions regarding the
event (e.g., When did the situation first begin?;”“Where were you when the situation hap-
pened.) Then, participants reflected on that situation and described their thoughts and
feelings.
We instructed participants to continue thinking about the challenging situation they described
and to report what they did as the experience unfolded. Participants subsequently responded to
67 construal-related items on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all,3=somewhat,5=very much). We
designed 34 items for abstract construal (e.g., I focused on the broader meaning of the
situation) and 33 items for concrete construal (e.g., I focused on the specific details of the
situation). The complete list of items is presented on the OSF project page. Due to a technical
error two abstract and one concrete item were presented twice in the survey. The repeats were
deleted prior to further analyses. To reduce scrolling fatigue when filling out the questionnaire
online, items were spread across four pages. For each page, we randomly selected half of the
items from the theorized abstractness pool and others from the concreteness pool. The abstract
and concrete items assigned to each page were identical across participants, whereas pages and
order of items in each page were randomized to avoid order effects. After completing the con-
strual measure, participants provided demographic information such as age and biological sex.
Analytical Procedure. The complete analytic protocol, including each step of the item reduction
procedure, is presented in the online supplement (Tables S9S14). We used conventional criteria
to evaluate model fit (standardized root mean square residual [RMSR] < .10, root mean square
error of approximation [RMSEA] < .08, comparative fit index [CFI] > .90) (Hu & Bentler, 1999).
We performed EFA via psych (Revelle, 2022) package in R, using the default Ordinary Least
Squares to find the minimum residual solution. We identified the number of factors by inspecting
eigenvalues, scree plot, and performing parallel analyses. This process suggested four factors.
Thus, we imposed a 4-factor solution. Because we were agnostic about the possible association
of factors, we used oblique (oblimin) rotation to allow the factors to correlate. At each iteration,
we removed items that did not load strongly onto a single factor (i.e., coefficients <.30), or that
cross-loaded substantially on more than one factor (<.20 difference between loadings on differ-
ent factors). We repeated this process several times, at each point inspecting model fit and cross-
loadings until no low- and ambiguously-loading items remained.
Expert Elicitation. In parallel to the factor analytic methods to reveal the items that uniquely iden-
tified (loaded onto) the abstract/concrete construal factors according to lay participants
responses, we reached out to experts who provided their feedback on the fit of items to the the-
oretical concepts of abstract and concrete construal. Five experts in social psychology who have
extensively published on construal level theory provided feedback on the appropriateness of the
initial list of 67 items for measuring abstract and concrete construal when reflecting on challeng-
ing experience (i.e., the nature of the recall task) and to indicate ten items to represent abstract-
ness and concreteness, each. The final selection included 14 items identified in the initial factor
analyses (but without distance and emotion items), supplemented with 8 items that received high
scores from experts and showed no cross-loadings in initial factor analyses.
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Model Selection and Nomological Network (Study 1b)
In the pre-registered phase, we had three aims. First, we refined and confirmed the factor struc-
ture of the SACCS on a new sample of English-speaking North Americans. Upon initial evi-
dence of a poor fit, we trimmed items further and compared different models of abstract and
concrete construal. To ensure positive association between abstract and concrete construal is
not due to a general response or cognitive reflection tendency, we included a bifactor model.
Moreover, in analyses with covariates, we considered a range of measures capturing domain-
general cognitive reflection, need for cognition, experiential and analytical thinking, person-
ality, and other relevant situational and trait-level individual differences outlined below.
Subsequently, we recruited a new sample from a different English-speaking culture the
United Kingdom to test the generalizability of the model we identified.
Participants. We recruited two English-speaking convenience samples from two different geo-
graphic regions. First, following our pre-registered protocol we targeted 314 American and
Canadian residents from MTurk via CloudResearch, in exchange for $3.25. This target sample
is sufficient to detect a moderate to small effect size in personality/social psychology (r= .20),
with 95% power (per G*Power calculation). Given the prevalence of bot-style responses on
the MTurk platform, we oversampled by 20%, requesting data from 375 participants. Because
some participants did not finish the study, we included 433 participants with partial submis-
sion (at least 2/3 of the study). Based on pre-registration, we excluded 110 participants who
provided non-sense responses to open-ended questions or wrote texts of no relevance to the
open-ended questions (e.g., Very good studyin response to the question about the nature of
the recalled social interaction), and one participant who missed half of the construal and
wisdom-related items; the resulting exclusion rate of 23% was typical for MTurk studies in
the field (Aguinis et al., 2021).
The final MTurk sample included 323 participants (Mage = 34.83, SD = 10.19; 42%
female; 7.76% no college, 22.36% some college/vocational school, 52.48% completed col-
lege, 17.39% graduate/prof. degree; Md[household income] = $50,001$75,000; 7.45%
Asian, 18.32% Black, 67.08% White, 4.35% Hispanic, 0.62% East Indian, 1.24% Mixed),
thereby reaching our targeted sample.
To confirm the factor structure and to generalize beyond North America, we targeted another
sample of 300 individuals with primary residency in the United Kingdom via Prolific. Partici-
pants received 2.6 GBP (approximately $3.25) for participation. We followed the same exclusion
criteria as above, excluding 54 responses from participants who did not complete at least 2/3 of
the study, and 8 participants who provided incoherent responses to open-ended questions. Fur-
ther, we built in two attention check items at the end of the impulsivity and rational-experiential
focus questionnaires (Please select 1-Notatall/ Please select 2 - Somewhat disagree)and
excluded another 8 participants who did not follow these instructions. The final Prolific sample
included 238 participants (Mage = 32.92, SD = 10.96; 76% female; 16.39% no college, 29.83%
some college/vocational school, 32.77% completed college, 21.01% graduate/prof. degree;
Md[household income] = $35,001$50,000; 9.28% Asian, 2.53% Black, 81.86% White,
1.27% Hispanic, 1.27% Middle Eastern, 0.84% East Indian, 1.69% Mixed).
Procedure and Materials. Instruction for the North American and UK samples was identical,
except for two attention check items included for the UK sample. The instructions for recall
and reconstruction of a challenging social event were the same as in Study 1a. Participants
completed the reduced set of SACCS items on a 5-point scale (1 = not at all,5=very much;
see Figure S5 in the supplement for the distribution of responses).
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As participants continued reflecting on the event, we assessed situational appraisals. That
is, we measured how people appraised the situation they recalled in terms of psychological
distance (I distanced myself from the experience;”“I tried to look at myself through a third-
person perspective, as an observer would),
2
temporal closeness to the experience (How
close in time do you feel to this event?), appraisal of closeness to conflict partner (How close
do you feel to the other person involved in the event now?), reliance on emotion/intuition (4
items, e.g., I used my heart as a guide for my thoughts), and appraisal of impulsivity (4 items,
e.g., I acted on impulse, without caring what might happen). All items were rated on 5-point
scales (1 = not at all,5=very much).
To capture mental features of wisdom, participants completed the Situated Wise Reasoning
Scale (SWiS) (Brienza et al., 2018). The reliability of the subscales was good (intellectual
humility α= .72; multiple ways α= .75; other perspectives α= .84; search for compromise
α= .83). As in pilot studies, subscales were also averaged into an overall index of wise rea-
soning (α= .88). SWiS also included four items capturing the consideration of a self-
transcendent viewpoint (α= .85). Because this facet of the scale is conceptually close to
the notion of psychological distance, per expert feedback in Study 1a in our main analyses
we treated this facet separately from the rest of the scale. Each result reported in the main text
and the supplement remains similar if this facet is included into the composite wisdom score.
Subsequently, participants completed five trait-style individual difference measures to cap-
ture the nomological network of abstract-concrete construal and to probe the construal-
wisdom association while controlling for these differences (see Table 2 for descriptives and
reliability estimates). These five measures were presented in a randomized order. We assessed
participantsanalytic-rational and experiential thinking using the Rational Experiential Inven-
tory (REI) (Norris & Epstein, 2011). Participants responded to three 10-item subscales for expe-
riential thinking: intuition (e.g., I trust my initial feelings about people), emotionality (e.g.,
My anger is often very intense) and imagination (e.g., Sometimes I like to just sit back
and watch things happen) and to the 12-item analytic-rational thinking subscale (e.g., I
enjoy problems that require hard thinking) on a 5-point scale (1 = completely disagree,5=
completely agree).
To measure participantscognitive reflection, we used the Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT)
(Frederick, 2005). Participants answered three open ended questions that assess the tendency
to override a strong wrong response alternative. For instance, for the question A bat and a ball
cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? (in
cents),n the intuitive answer is 10 cents, but the correct answer is 5.
We measured participantslevel of the behavioral identification using the Behavioral Iden-
tification Form (BIF) ( Vallacher & Wegner, 1989). It assesses individual differences in level
(high vs. low) of identification for different actions. Participants responded to 24 items by
choosing one of two descriptions of an action. For instance, for making a listone could
either select getting organized(higher level) or writing things down(lower level). The indi-
viduals identification level is calculated based on the number of chosen high-level descrip-
tions, with higher scores reflecting higher level identification.
2
Study 1b pre-registration treated psychological distance items as part of the SACCS. Per Study 1a expert
recommendations, we treated these items as a distinct construct. Further, one abstract item (I thought about
whether this situation was typical) was not included in the confirmatory Prolific sample of Study 1b.
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We assessed participantsanalytic and holistic thinking tendencies via the Analysis-Holism
Scale (AHS) (Choi et al., 2007). It consists of four independent facets that has 6 items in each:
(1) interdependent explanation of causal relationship (α= .77, e.g., Everything in the universe
is somehow related to each other), (2) acceptance of contradiction (α= .69 e.g., It is more
desirable to take the middle ground than to go to extremes), (3) holistic locus of attention (α=
.73, e.g., The whole, rather than its parts, should be considered in order to understand a phe-
nomenon), and (4) linear prediction of change (reverse-scored; α= .72, e.g., If an event is
moving toward a certain direction, it will continue to move toward that direction)ona
5-point scale (1 = completely disagree,5=completely agree). Notably, high scores on the
linear prediction of change sub-scale endorsed linearity and predictability instead of
holism-aligned dialecticism and uncertainty; on other sub-scales higher scores reflected
greater holism. Reliability analyses revealed that this sub-scale showed positive (rather than
theoretically expected negative) associations to other sub-scales. Critically, even the original
psychometric work showed modest-to-negligible association of this sub-scale to several other
sub-scales (Table 2 in Choi et al., 2007). Consequently, we focused on the averaged responses
to the former three sub-scales concerning interdependent explanation of causal relationship,
acceptance of contradiction, and holistic locus of attention, .32 < rs.35, as an index of
holistic thinking.
To assess personality traits, we used the HEXACO inventory (Ashton & Lee, 2009) to cap-
ture six dimensions: Honesty-Humility (e.g., I wouldnt use flattery to get a raise or promotion
at work, even if I thought it would succeed), Emotionality (e.g., I would feel afraid if I had to
travel in bad weather conditions), Extraversion (e.g., I prefer jobs that involve active social
interaction to those that involve working alone), Agreeableness versus Anger (e.g., I tend to
be lenient in judging other people), Conscientiousness (e.g., People often call me a perfec-
tionist), and Openness to Experience (e.g., I would enjoy creating a work of art, such as a
novel, a song, or a painting). Participants indicated how much they disagree/agree with each
of the 60 items on a 5-point scale (1 = completely disagree,5=completely agree). At the end
of the study, participants provided demographic information.
Linguistic Markers. To move beyond self-reported questionnaire responses, we aimed to assess
linguistic markers participants spontaneously relied on in their open-ended reflections on the
scenarios. Preliminary inspection of open-ended responses indicated sufficiently detailed
content for Natural Language Processing (NLP) analyses. The responses exhibited an average
length of 22.65 words (SD = 19.45, Range [5; 163]) and an average of 2 sentences per
response (SD =1.03,Range [1; 7]), suggesting that the responses were not only varied in
length but also rich enough to provide meaningful linguistic data for analysis (also see analyses
of co-occurrences below).
We built on the insights from the Linguistic Category Model (LCM) (Semin & Fiedler, 1988)
a framework that categorizes linguistic markers in terms of abstractness and concreteness.
The LCM differentiates between concrete language that refers to specific, observable actions or
qualities, and abstract language that denotes more general, interpretive, or evaluative states or
processes. Informed by this model, we sought to identify markers reflecting experience-
focused adjectives and descriptive action verbs to capture concrete language, and markers
reflecting person-focused adjectives (e.g., general trait ascriptions) and interpretative action
verbs to capture abstract language.
We first part-of-speech classified open-ended text responses via UDPipe English model
(https://universaldependencies.org/). Next, we manually inspected adjectives. First, we classi-
fied them in terms of characteristics of entities, personal and general attributes that are
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immutable (e.g., universal, normal, past) and those describing sensory perceptions, feelings
and situation-specific nuances (e. g., worried, violent, uncomfortable). This initial classification
was guided by ChatGPT-4 suggestions for sorting adjectives in terms of abstractness and con-
creteness (as of July 14, 2023). Second, to identify descriptive (concrete) and interpretative
action (abstract) verbs, we cross-checked UDPipe-tagged verbs against Brysbaert and
colleagues(2014) concreteness ratings (https://web.archive.org/web/20230925032140/
https://crr.ugent.be/archives/1330). To create the descriptive verb dictionary, we excluded
transactional and non-descriptive action words like communicateand understand,and
focused on the top 200 most common verbs. For interpretive action verbs, we initially examined
the least concrete verbs as per Brysbaert et al.s ratings. Third, we refined the dictionary of inter-
pretative action verbs by building on the insights from the Linguistic Category Model, selecting
verbs related to mental processes, interpretation, evaluation, and judgment. These verbs, typi-
cally more abstract, highlight the interpretive and evaluative aspects of social cognition.
For each participant, we calculated the proportion of words in each category relative to the
total number of tokens, to control for narrative text length. Final dictionaries are available in
the Rscript on the project website (https://osf.io/mwcyp/).
Analytical Procedure. Following our pre-registration, we used the North American sample to
estimate the fit of the model identified in Study 1a for the 22 SACCS items. We considered a
two-factor model with items from the abstract pool forming one factor and items from the
concrete pool forming another factor, while controlling for a common factor. To improve
model fit, we followed the pre-registered contingency plan and performed an iterative EFA
(see supplement), trimming 3 poor-loading items from abstract and concrete sub-scales, each,
and inspecting modification indices to allow for two highest residual correlations. Finally, we
used the UK sample to confirm the fit of the bifactor model of this reduced set of 18 items.
In assessing the nomological network, we treated indicators of discriminant and convergent
validity as separate yet interrelated components within the same model. We pooled reverse-
coded items in the same direction and averaged respective items into indices; descriptive and
reliability information for the nomological network indices is presented in Table 2. Our ana-
lytical focus was on factor scores derived from a bifactor model, which allowed us to ensure
that estimated associations were independent of a general factor affecting responses to abstract
and concrete construal items (details on average-based indices of abstract and concrete con-
strual are available in the supplementary analyses in the Rnotebook on OSF).
To test nomological network hypotheses, we used multiple regressions to examine the
effects of mean-centered construals and their interaction. Further, for linguistic analyses we
only considered responses with at least four words of text to ensure we considered only
context-rich responses. This approach was underpinned by several key hypotheses aligned
with the tenets of Construal Level Theory (CLT) and related research:
1. Abstractness is more closely associated with psychological distance than concreteness,
in line with CLT (Trope & Liberman, 2010).
2. Abstract construals (big picturethinking) is more strongly associated with cognitive
reappraisal in interpersonal conflicts and interpersonal closeness (Gross, 1998) com-
pared to concreteness.
3. Abstractness aligns with higher attribution of emotionality to past transgressions (Kousta
et al., 2011).
4. Concreteness relates to situation-sensitive personality traits like conscientiousness,
extraversion, and agreeableness.
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5. Linguistically, abstractness is associated with descriptors of entities and trait attributes,
while concreteness corresponds with the prevalence of descriptive action verbs and
adjectives that detail ones perceptions and situational specifics (Semin & Fiedler, 1988).
For wisdom-related analyses, we estimated a bifactor model with SACCS items and SWiS
items feeding into a general factor. In this model, we regressed a second-order wisdom factor
(with first-order factors of intellectual humility, othersperspectives, multiple ways, and search
for compromise) on abstract and concrete construal. Further, we probed these associations
when including analytic-rational and experiential thinking, cognitive reflection, and personal-
ity traits as covariates. Given the large number of indicators in the nomological network and
wisdom-related models, we maximized power by performing analyses across North American
and the UK samples. Supplementary analyses report sample-wise analyses.
NLP Analyses. Using part-of-speech tagged tokens (via UDPipe; see above), we identified
verbs, nouns, and adjectives in each sentence. We sorted the resulting dataframe in descend-
ing order of wisdom factor scores, obtained from the bifactor model with wisdom and SACCS
items. Subsequently, we examined co-occurrences between lemmatized verbs, adjectives and
verbs in the same sentence of the same participant, separately for top 25% of wisdom per-
formers and bottom 25% of wisdom performers. We plotted the semantic networks based
on these co-occurrences, selecting the top 70 co-occurrences to avoid overplotting. Further,
we identified overlapping and distinct words in each network for visualization. We aimed to
determine whether participants primarily emphasized the concrete details of the negative
social conflict they reflected on, as instructed, or also explored broader meanings and positive
reappraisals of the experience.
Results
Exploratory Analyses. The initial item-reduction resulted in 20 items (10 from the abstract
pool and 10 from the concrete pool) explaining 47% of the total variance (model fit indices:
RMSR = .02; CFI =1;RMSEA = .001, 95% CI [.001 .023]). At this first stage, factors were
moderately positively correlated, .14 < rs < .59, and no factors showed negative loadings
(supplementary Table S13)i.e., people did not report abstract and concrete experiences
along a single continuum.
In the parallel expert elicitation stage, we inspected the most frequently expert-nominated
items, avoiding items with cross-loadings in initial factor analyses. Many of these items over-
lapped with the items identified in initial factor analyses (see Table S13 in the supplement).
Further, experts converged in their recommendations on treating items reflecting psychological
distance and consideration of emotions and intuitions as distinct from abstract and concrete
construal. Following this advice, we removed six distance- and emotion/intuition-related items
from further consideration.
Integrating factor analytic insights and expert recommendations, we zeroed in on 22 items
(evenly split between abstract and concrete pools). The abstract items related to whyques-
tions, typicality, ones general character, extrapolation to ones general future, the big picture
perspective, and the general significance of the situation. Conversely, the concrete items
related to howquestions, specific behaviors, qualifiers of time, concrete experiences and
circumstances, and concrete outcomes of the situation (see Tab le 1 for verbatim items and
sub-scale reliability). The fit of the two-factor model was acceptable (see supplement), RMSR =
.054, RMSEA = .060, and CFI = .901. To ensure that the positive association between
abstract and concrete construal is not due to a general response tendency, we also tested a
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Table 1. Reliability and standardized parameter estimates for the final items for the Situated Abstract Concrete Construal Scale (SACCS) from
bifactor model in Studies 1a1b.
Study 1a North America Study 1b North America Study 1b UK
Item
Abstract
(α= .84)
Concrete
(α= .88)
Abstract
(α= .83)
Concrete
(α= .82)
Abstract
(α=.76)
Concrete
(α=.80)
I thought about what the situation says about me
as a person. (a1)
.416 .411 .319
I thought about the life experiences that led to this
situation. (a3)
.408 .488 .328
I thought about how this situation fits into the
broader context of my life. (a4)
.400 .479 .467
I thought about how this situation impacts my
overall well-being. (a5)
.273 .466 .387
I focused on the broader meaning of the situation.
(a8)
.246 .593 .307
I thought about whether this situation was typical.
(a12)
.551
I thought about the situation as one of many
similar experiences. (a15)
.774 .796 .567
It seemed to represent a typical event in my life.
(a17)
.722 .688 .904
I focused on the big picture. (a26) .202 .411 .262
I asked myself why this situation made me feel the
way it did. (a28)
.407 .458 .196
I thought about the significance of this situation
for people involved. (a31)
.080
I considered the specific words I was saying in the
situation. (c1)
.429 .546 .169
I thought about the specific events and
circumstances that led to this situation. (c3)
.400
I thought about how this situation would
immediately impact me. (c4)
.486
I focused on the specific details of the situation.
(c8)
.505 .600 .444
I considered the concrete and immediate
outcomes of the situation. (c10)
.326 .413 .326
I focused on each part of the situation as the
experience unfolded. (c12)
.491 .533 .402
I focused on the here and nowof the situation.
(c14)
.562 .458 .488
I focused on specific aspects of the experience.
(c16)
.482 .606 .574
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bifactor model. This model assumes all items loading onto a general factor, which is orthog-
onal to factors representing abstract and concrete construal. The model fit of a bifactor model
was acceptable, RMSR = .047, RMSEA = .057, and CFI = .924. Here, most abstract and all
concrete items significantly loaded on respective factors (Table S14;alsoseeFigure S5 in
the supplement). In turn, latent factors of abstractness and concreteness explained non-
negligible amounts of variance, abstract: R
2
= .252, concrete: R
2
= .230. Moreover, when con-
trolling for the general factor, abstract and concrete factors remained positively associated with
each other, r= .48.
Confirmatory Analyses. Initial confirmatory tests of the 22-item SACCS scale revealed model fit
slightly below a priori established benchmarks, RMSR =.057,RMSEA =.071,CFI =.863.
Therefore, we followed our pre-registered contingency plan and performed iterative EFAs,
reducing the scale to 18 items with an acceptable model fit, RMSR = .050, RMSEA = .059,
CFI = .923 (see supplementary Table S17). Further confirmatory tests of this bifactor model
on another sample from the UK showed an acceptable fit, RMSR = .052, RMSEA = .054,
CFI = .924. Results for both samples indicated that abstract and concrete construal factors
explained non-negligible variance in responses to SACCS items, North America: R
2
(abstract) =
.242; R
2
(concrete) = .384; UK: R
2
(abstract) = .201; R
2
(concrete) = .054. Path models in Figure 1
show standardized parameters for the North American sample (top) and the UK sample (bottom),
revealing significant loading of abstract and concrete items on the respective latent factors, along
with a non-negligible positive association between these factors.
Nomological Network. We examined hypothesized nomological network associations of the
SACCS for trait, state, and linguistic markers. We performed multiverse tests involving two
approaches to control for general response tendencies across measuresthe bifactor and
method factor models. Across both approaches, we observed support for the convergent valid-
ity of the SACCS, in line the CLTs theorizing about abstractness being more aligned with psy-
chological distance than concreteness (Trope & Liberman, 2010), the role of abstract (big
picture) cognitive reappraisal of interpersonal conflicts and interpersonal closeness (Gross,
1998), alignment of abstractness with greater attribution of emotionality (Kousta et al.,
2011) for the past transgression, and concreteness with situation-sensitive personality traits
(conscientiousness, extraversion, and agreeableness), as well as alignment of abstractness with
Table 1. (continued)
Study 1a North America Study 1b North America Study 1b UK
Item
Abstract
(α= .84)
Concrete
(α= .88)
Abstract
(α= .83)
Concrete
(α= .82)
Abstract
(α=.76)
Concrete
(α=.80)
I focused on what I was saying and doing in the
situation. (c22)
.360 .558 .447
I focused on specific behaviors during the
situation. (c27)
.369 .654 .560
I considered the specific circumstances
surrounding the situation. (c28)
.407 .451 .541
Note. Models include a general factor, accounting for common method variance across items. Study 1a includes 22 items. Study 1b includes
the final 18 items after further item-reduction analyses, as well as correlated residuals (a1~~a28; c1~~c22). Item type (a = abstract, c = con-
crete) and number presented in parentheses, numbers correspond to the items from the original list.
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linguistic descriptors of entities and trait attributes, and concreteness with prevalence of
descriptive action verbs (Semin & Fiedler, 1988) and adjectives describing ones perceptions
and situational specifics.
State-level abstractness and concreteness were largely independent of trait-level responses,
with all associations in the small-moderate range (Table 2). People who construed events con-
cretely were more likely to report valuing intuition and imagination in their lives (Table 2 and
Tab l e S21 for sample-specific analyses), consistent with the idea that concrete construal is
linked with focus on first-hand experiences. Also, participants who construed events
Figure 1. Path diagram of the bifactor model with 18 items (a = items from the abstract pool; c = items from the concrete pool) in Study 1. Top
panel North American sample data. Bottom panel UK sample data. G. Factor = general factor. Item coloring and line thickness correspond to
strength of association with respective construal factors and the general factor in a given sample. Dotted line represents an item with unstan-
dardized factor loading fixed to 1 (a requirement for structural equation modelling analyses). For ease of interpretation, we present standard-
ized parameter estimates. For wording of each item, refer to Table 1.
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Table 2. Descriptive statistics, reliability, and associations of nomological network measures to abstract and concrete construal in Study 1.
Measure
Descriptives Reliability Abstract Concrete A × C
M(SD)α(r)βββ
Trait-level measures
REI - Analytic (n= 12) 3.61 (0.72) .86 .13*** .11* .01
REI - Intuitive (n= 10) 3.39 (0.56) .70 .05 .06* .04
REI - Imagination (n= 10) 3.74 (0.64) .78 .05 .16*** .01
REI - Emotionality (n= 10) 3.31 (0.57) .62 .02 0.04 .02
Cognitive Reflection (n= 3) 1.30 (1.24) .79 .21*** 0.06 .03
Behavioral Identification Form (n= 25) 0.60 (0.23) .87 .001 .02* .01
Holistic Thinking (n= 3) 4.97 (0.67) .60 0.06 .17*** .08***
HEXACO - Honesty/Humility (n= 10) 3.40 (0.73) .74 .11*** .02 .05
HEXACO - Emotionality (n= 10) 3.30 (0.71) .77 .01(.03) .03 .01
HEXACO - Extraversion (n= 10) 3.00 (0.73) .79 .04(.02) .07* .03
HEXACO - Agreeableness (n= 10) 3.20 (0.69) .76 .10** .09** .03
HEXACO - Conscientiousness (n= 10) 3.60 (0.71) .79 .17*** .11** .01
HEXACO - Openness (n= 10) 3.50 (0.75) .79 .06 .12**** .04
Situational appraisals
Psychological distance (n= 2) 2.70 (1.10) (.25) .35**** .12* .04
Temporal closeness 3.53 (1.15) .26*** .21*** .03
Closeness to interpersonal transgressor 3.08 (1.54) .31*** .03 .08
Reliance on emotion/intuition (n= 4) 3.59 (0.80) .63 .21*** .15*** .02
Impulsivity assessment (n= 4) 2.91 (1.19) .86 .33*** .06 .01
Linguistic markers (% of tokens)
Person-focused adjectives (log) 1.33 (3.00) .22** .02 .07
Interpretative action verbs (log) 6.02 (6.31) .02 .05 .08
Sensory/situational adjectives (log) 8.90 (11.97) .10 .22* .29**
Descriptive action verbs (log) 7.80 (.6.73) .13 .22* .06
State-level self-transcendence 2.86 (1.18) .85 .30*** .21*** .14**
Wisdom (average of sub-scales; n= 4) 3.01 (0.91) .89 .21*** .26*** .09**
Intellectual humility (n= 4) 2.90 (1.01) .72 .28*** .20*** .09*
Othersperspectives (n= 4) 3.02 (1.13) .84 .23*** .28*** .13**
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concretely were more likely to report higher levels of situation-sensitive personality character-
istics (conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness). Conversely, people who construed
their events abstractly were significantly more likely to rely on heuristics (i.e., choosing a spon-
taneously appealing wrong option on the Cognitive Reflection Test), and were less likely to
appreciate systematic deliberation. In North America, concreteness was also associated with
first-hand experiences, REI-Emotionality, -Intuition, and -Imagination (see supplement). Con-
trary to expectations, the BIF was not associated with construing the event more abstractly
and showed a negligible positive association with construing the event concretely. In hindsight,
the orthogonality of the BIF and SACCS indices can be explained by distinct levels of analysis
outlined in the introduction earlier: Whereas BIF captures trait-level reports on action-related
preferences, SACCS was explicitly designed to capture subjective construalsi.e.,
situation-grounded reports on abstractness and concreteness in reflections on onesexperience.
Turning to state-specific correlations, abstractness showed a stronger association than con-
creteness with the appraisal of the event as psychologically distant, in line with CLT. Further,
consistent with the notion that an abstract, big pictureviewpoint affords reappraising the
nature of the conflict and provides socio-emotional benefits thereafter (cf. cognitive reap-
praisal; Gross, 1998; Kross & Ayduk, 2017, for a review), people who construed their events
abstractly during the conflict were significantly more likely to later appraise being close to the
person they had conflict with earlier (also see natural-language processing results below).
3
Furthermore, they were more likely to assess their past behavior in the conflict situation as
impulsive, suggesting that abstractness was aligned with the view of the initial response to the
transgression as premature (in line with prior emotion regulatory research regulation; Gross,
1998; Kross & Ayduk, 2017). Moreover, abstract and concrete construal were also additively
associated with holism, such that greater holistic tendencies were observed among partici-
pants reporting both high abstractness and concreteness (see supplementary Figure S7).
3
The positive association between abstractness and interpersonal closeness after a transgression might seem
to contradict the theory linking abstractness with psychological distance. However, this apparent inconsistency
is resolved by considering the sequence of events in our study. Participants first assessed the abstractness of their
reactions during the conflict before later evaluating their current feelings of closeness to the involved individual.
This sequence suggests that abstract construal in reflection on an ongoing conflict may facilitate a more ami-
cable resolution, thereby reducing psychological distance and enhancing feelings of closeness post-conflict.
This interpretation aligns with claims that psychological distance can, under certain conditions, promote reso-
lution strategies that ultimately bring individuals closer (Kross & Ayduk, 2017, for a review).
Table 2. (continued)
Measure
Descriptives Reliability Abstract Concrete A × C
M(SD)α(r)βββ
Multiple views (n= 4) 3.21 (0.95) .75 .16*** .25*** .05
Compromise (n= 5) 2.90 (1.01) .83 .15*** .31*** .09*
Note.n= number of items in a measure. β= standardized parameter estimates from a multiple regression with abstract construal, concrete
construal, and their interaction (A × C), with predictors mean-centered and scaled by 1 SD prior to creating an interaction term. Abstract and
concrete construal are based on factor scores from a bifactor model in Figure 1, controlling for the influence of a common factor.
*** p.001.
** p.01.
*p.05.
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Additionally, we observed systematic associations of abstractness and concreteness to
linguistic markers (Tab le 2). While abstractness was uniquely associated with adjectives
describing entities and persons that one cannot perceive directly (e.g., main, normal, univer-
sal), concreteness was associated with adjectives describing ones perception of the experi-
ence - sensory perceptions, feelings, and descriptions of the specific situation, as well as with
descriptive verbs (e.g., listen, speak, cry). Critically, situation-specific abstract and concrete
construal scores were independent of the trait-level differences in action identification, indi-
cating unique contribution of the SACCS
4
beyond trait-level measures.
Construal and Wisdom. Replicating pilot study results, both abstract and concrete construal
were significantly positively associated with mental features of wisdom (Tabl e 2 and
supplementary Figure S7 and Table S20): each aspect of wisdom was significantly more likely
to manifest among participants who reported construing the event both abstractly and con-
cretely. These effects remained virtually identical when controlling for trait-level covariates,
situational appraisals, and deliberation time on the task (supplementary Table S20).
Next, we ran a bifactor model in which both construal and wisdom-related items contributed
to a common factor, to test the latent-level associations of wisdom to abstract and concrete con-
strual, and their interaction (Cortina et al., 2021). Results showed that controlling for a common
method factor, abstract and concrete construal significantly contributed to wisdom, abstract con-
strual: B= .543, SE = .183, β= .208, z= 3.24, p= .001, concrete construal: B= .612, SE = .144,
β= .280, z=4.24,p< .001. Moreover, we observed an abstract × concrete construal interaction,
B= .171, SE = .083, β= .10, z=2.07,p= .039. Simple slope analyses revealed a stronger asso-
ciation of abstractness with wisdom when concreteness was also high (+1 SD), B= .764, SE =
.196, p< .001, compared to when it was low (1SD), B= .422, SE = .206, p= .040.
Natural-Language-Processing. To examine whether the association between construal and wisdom
extends beyond self-report questionnaires, we performed exploratory natural language processing
(NLP) analyses. First, we examined the linguistic markers related to abstractness and concreteness
which were inspired by Semin and Fiedlers(1988) linguistic category model (see Table 2). How-
ever, we failed to observe significant associations of these linguistic markers and self-reported
wisdom facets, Spearmansρs < .08, possibly because of high skewness and low to no usage
of specified terms, reducing variability essential for detecting meaningful associations, person-
focused adjectives: Md =0,Skew = 2.68; interpretative action verbs: Md =0,Skew =1.45;
sensory adjectives: Md = .06, Skew = 3.03; descriptive action verbs: Md = .08, Skew = 9.70.
Because of these limitations, in the next step we chose to focus on the corpus-wide (vs.
individual-level) analyses comparing high vs. low wisdom groups, probing co-occurrences
of key verbs, adjectives, and nouns in the same sentence among the participants scoring in
the top 25% and bottom 25% on the SWiS. These analyses reflect semantic dependencies
when participants were prompted to write down their thoughts and feelings about the
unresolved interpersonal challengethey chose to reflect on, prior to providing
questionnaire-based ratings of construal. In other words, the instructions prompted participants
to be concrete in their reflection, raising the question which group would be more likely to
also consider the conflict experience from the abstract big picture angle. The network graphs
in Figure 2 revealed that while both groups expressed negative feelings, high wisdom partic-
ipants also wondered about the situations meaning, labelled their emotional states
4
Whereas the SACCS was consistently associated with mental features of wisdom in the moderate-high effect
size range, r
abstract
= .51, r
concrete
= .48, trait-style measure of abstractness (BIF) showed weak associations to
wisdom, r= .10.
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(confused), and considered future actions (program). Moreover, high wisdom participants
appeared to engage in big picture positive reframing of the aversive interpersonal situation (by
describing a positive life outlook and reporting positive emotions in their retelling of the con-
flict), consistent with the notion of cognitive reappraisal (Gross, 1998)i.e., a mental process
involving both specificity/concreteness when bringing to mind the specifics of the situation and
abstraction when considering the bigger picture beyond the immediate aversive situation at hand.
Formal analyses corroborated the differential linguistic patterns between high and low wis-
dom groups. First, Fishers Exact Test showed that high wisdom groups terms were 2.35 times
more likely to be unique, 95% CI [.94, 7.34], p(OR > 1) = .065. Moving to terms present in both
networks, centrality analysis, based on the count of adjacent edges normalized by n1 vertices,
revealed the high wisdom group had fewer adjacent edges (M=.07,SD = 0.11) than the low
wisdom group (M=.12,SD = 0.17), Wilcoxon signed-rank test V=59,p= .002. This analysis
suggests denser discourse clustering around concrete terms about the conflict reflection (e.g.,
Figure 2. Linguistic analyses of 50 most frequent adjectives, nouns, and verbs in participantsopen-ended reflections on the most recent
interpersonal conflict. Visual representation in the network based on strength of cooccurrences (as indicated by thickness of edges in the graph
and their spatial position on the graph), standardized across corpora of high and low wisdom performers (indexed by method-factor-adjusted latent
score of wisdom). Overlapping words in orange indicate that participants in both groups mentioned concrete feelings involving another person.
Distinct words for the high wisdom group indicate that participants in this group simultaneously mentioned the positive outlook on life, an indicator
of abstract reframing of the experience in terms of bigger picture (also evidenced by mentioning of wonder,mean,mind,program,action).
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feel,”“think,”“angry,”“situation,”“frustrated,”“anger;Figure 2) in the low wisdom group.
Finally, co-occurrence frequency was significantly higher in the low wisdom (Md = 22) com-
pared to the higher wisdom group (Md = 6), as indicated by the negative binomial model, B=
1.20, SE =0.08,z=14.33,p< .001. Collectively, these findings suggest that the high wisdom
group was less inclined than the low wisdom group to dwell solely on the specifics of the imme-
diate situation they reflected upon, integrating more abstract terms into their discourse.
Discussion
Study 1 introduced a new Situation-specific Abstract and Concrete Construal Scale (SACCS),
which showed good psychometric properties and unique associations to mental features of
wisdom. The results of Study 1 also suggested that situation-specific reports of abstract and
concreteconstrualtendtogohandinhand,rather than being inverse ends of a single
abstract-concrete construal dimension. Additionally, concreteness was more likely to be associated
with intuitive and imaginative cognitive styles, whereas abstractness was more likely to be asso-
ciated with psychological distance and heuristic information processing. Moreover, abstractness
and concreteness additively contributed to wisdom. These effects held when controlling for indi-
vidual difference covariates in reflection styles, personality and analytic-holistic thinking, and
when performing multiverse analyses via construal scores from bifactor and common method
models of abstractness and concreteness, as well as when modelling associations between con-
strual and wisdom within structural equation modelling (see analyses at osf.io/r6huj).
Critically, the additive effects of abstractness and concreteness on wisdom manifested not only
in the SACCS, but also when exploring the semantic content of words in open-ended reflections
about the interpersonal conflicts among high and low wisdom groups. Though participants in both
groups were focusing on their negative feelings toward the other person (following the prompt
instructions to write about the social conflict they recently experienced), high wisdom participants
uniquely engaged in big picture positive reframing of the aversive interpersonal situation, which
requires balancing the abstract with the concrete (Barsalou et al., 2018; Gross, 1998).
Despite the promising findings of Study 1, however, it is possible that the positive contri-
bution of both high levels of abstractness and concreteness for wisdom is due to the event
sampling method: Participants in Study 1 tended to recall concrete, salient events from their
lives, and the event reconstruction process focused on details and specifics to avoid memory
biases, leading to mostly concrete recalls. It is plausible that under such naturalistic circum-
stances it is chiefly abstractness, on top of the already concrete event-recall, which is contrib-
uting to wiser reflection on the experience. Study 2 addressed this limitation.
STUDY 2
In Study 2, all participants reflected on the same set of six non-autobiographical scenarios
describing challenging interpersonal situations, spread over several study sessions to avoid
cognitive fatigue. Study 2 also seeks to systematically evaluate how both abstract and concrete
construals contribute to mental features of wisdom across distinctinter- and intra-individual
levels of analyses. To this end, participants reported on their construal and mental features of
wisdom across six situations, spread over three measurement waves. To test effects of construal
on wisdom across trait and state levels of analyses, we fit multilevel models with participants
trait construal tendency across six situations and situation-specific deviations from their trait as
predictors of wisdom.
Moreover, Study 2 extended the assessment of construal and wisdom beyond scale-based
responses. Inspired by Berlins original idea that foxesbalance abstract and concrete
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construal in their judgment as well as emerging insights about construal balance and flexibility
within regulatory scope framework (Trope et al., 2021; Wiesenfeld et al., 2017), we probed
how balance and switching between abstract and concrete strategies while working through a
complex social event contributes to expression of wisdom in event reflections. Upon rating 18
SACCS items, participants completed the newly developed Strategy Ordering Task: They
selected eight of the construal items they were mostly considering in their reflections. We
asked participants to rearrange items on the screen via the mouse cursorsgrab and drag
action to extend measurement beyond scale-based responses. Overall, for each of the six
events, we were able to obtain measures of abstract and concrete mental representations both
based on rating scales and the Strategy Ordering Task, simultaneously assessing the balance of
and switching between abstract and concrete construal strategies while reflecting on a given
scenario.
Methods
Ethics Review Board Statement and Pre-Registration. This research was reviewed and received
ethics clearance through the University of Waterloo Research Ethics Committee (#30580).
Informed consent was obtained from all participants. All study hypotheses and methods were
pre-registered on OSF (https://osf.io/hpd5f).
Participants. We aimed to recruit 300 North American participants for the first measurement
wave via Prolific Academic, targeting a final sample of at least 165 participants for the conclud-
ing wave. This sample size was determined based on G*Power calculations, indicating it would
be sufficient to detect a moderate/small effect size (r= .20) in personality/social psychology
research, with an α/βset at 5%. Based on prior research with Prolific samples, we anticipated
up to 10% of responses to be excluded due to low quality (suspected bots and nonsense
responses) and 30% additional attrition rate between waves. Participants received 2.50 GBP
(approximately $2.9) for each wave, in total 7.5 GBP for participating in all three waves over
ten days. Participants self-selected into the study and represented a convenience sample.
We started with a sample of 300 participants recruited for the first wave, with 288 continu-
ing to the second wave and 255 completing the third wave. Following our pre-registered pro-
tocol, we excluded nonsensical or irrelevant responses (e.g., generic compliments like very
good study) or bot-like or copy-pasted content from external sources (wave 1 = 1.67%; wave
2 = 4.17%; wave 3 = 5.10%), repeated responses from the same participant (wave 2 = 0.72%;
wave 3 = 0.83%), participants who completed less than half of the construal and SWiS items
each wave (wave 2 = 1.46%; wave 3 = 0.83%), and participants who showed no variance in
construal and SWiS scales (wave 1 = 0.34%; wave 2 = 0.37%; wave 3 = 0.83%). The final
sample compromised 297 participants in the first wave and 237 participants in the third wave
(see Table 3 for demographics).
Procedure. Participants took part in a 3-wave study with four days between each wave. In
each wave, participants were presented with descriptions of two different real events,
sampled from reports in prior research (Dorfman et al., 2022). We selected events based
on comparable description length, focus on specific (rather than reoccurring) experiences,
and their typicalityin prior research, commonly reported challenges concerned social
conflicts/arguments with a spouse, friend, or parent (Dorfman et al., 2022). By spreading
responses to six events across three waves, we aimed to reduce the burden for a single sur-
vey, while simultaneously testing stability of key constructs in different measurement ses-
sions. The presentation order of the two situations was randomized between participants.
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Below are examples of two situations presented in the first wave (see the supplement for all
six stories).
A person at the department where I work is angry at me over something that isntmy
fault. It is actually another persons fault for not communicating information with them. I
feel stuck in the middle and like no one will take responsibility. I just tried to defend
myself when the angry person came in and talked about the situation. I explained that
the head supervisor had told me that they wanted to communicate with this person. I
promised to avoid miscommunications in the future. I feel annoyed and attacked
because its not my responsibility to play their office politics games.
I got drunk and really upset someone who I am friends with. I guess he thinks I
blocked him on Facebook when really, I have deactivated my Facebook account. The
following day, I reactivated my Facebook account and tried talking to the person. He is
really upset with me. He said he is tired of me doing crazy things whenever I get drunk,
and said he is also tired of how emotional I get when I am with him. So, he decided he
no longer wants to be friends with me and has blocked me on Facebook. I dont have his
phone number either. So, I cant text him. I havent spoken to him since, and it is really
making me sad. I feel like I have lost a best friend because I went from talking to him
almost every day to not talking to him at all. Ive been doing a lot of crying as a result of
it. Ive been trying to talk to the guy, again. Using another account that I have, I am trying
to message him on Facebook, but he wont respond to me.
After reading each story, they were instructed to imagine the event occurring to themselves.
Participants then recorded their thoughts and potential actions in response to the situation, as
Table 3. Demographics by Wave in Study 2.
Demographic Variable Wave 1 (N= 297) Wave 2 (N= 270) Wave 3 (N= 237)
Average Age (years) 32.12 32.46 33.04
Percentage Female 53.4 53.93 52.34
No College Education (%) 13.61 12.73 13.62
Some College/ Vocational School (%) 35.37 36.7 34.47
Completed College Education (%) 33.67 33.71 34.04
Graduate/Professional Degree (%) 17.35 16.85 17.87
Median Household Income Range $75,001$100,000 $75,001$100,000 $75,001$100,000
Asian (%) 12.93 12.35 13.62
Black/African American (%) 3.74 3.75 3.4
White (%) 72.11 73.41 71.06
Middle-Eastern (%) 1.36 1.12 1.7
Hispanic/Latino (%) 2.72 2.25 2.55
East Indian (%) 1.02 1.12 0.85
Mixed Ethnicity (%) 6.12 5.99 6.81
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detailed in the supplemental materials. They were also asked to complete the Situation-specific
Abstract and Concrete Construal Scale (SACCS) and to select up to eight SACCS items that were
most relevant to their reflections. Subsequently, participants arranged these chosen items in an
order reflecting their thought process. They then completed the Situated Wise reasoning Scale
(SWiS, Brienza et al., 2018), which was also used in Study 1. This entire procedure was repli-
cated for a second, different situation. At the end of the session, participants rated their level of
identification with each scenario and provided demographic information.
Abstract/Concrete Scale. Participants read the prompt We would like you to continue to think
about the situation as the main person in the story and recall what you considered doing as
you reflected on it. Please select the extent to which you engaged in the following thoughts
and behaviors. As the main person in the story, I…’” Next, they completed the nine abstract